


Claudia: Making the Grade

by Yemi Hikari (Yemi_Hikari)



Series: Baby Sitters Club: Life Moments [5]
Category: The Baby-Sitters Club (TV 2020)
Genre: Dyslexic Claudia Kishi, Expectations, Gen, Grades, Introspection, Learning Disabilities, Learning Disabled Claudia Kishi, Parental Expectations, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yemi_Hikari/pseuds/Yemi%20Hikari
Summary: Claudia struggles with being "good enough" for her parents.
Relationships: Claudia Kishi & L "Mimi" Yamamoto
Series: Baby Sitters Club: Life Moments [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856512
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8
Collections: Focus on Female Characters, MinorFandomFest, Platonic Relationships, The Chamber





	Claudia: Making the Grade

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer - I don't own Baby Sitter's Club 2020.

Never enough.

The dreadful feeling of not being enough felt like something Claudia felt so alone in, given the fact she didn’t see her friends disappointing their parents as she did, yet in regards to Trevor she found herself realizing just maybe she wasn’t alone in the matter. After all, Kristy struggled with dealing with her father issues, something Claudia would rather leave unsaid given the fact Kristy _really_ didn’t want to face _that_ given issue. Mary Anne at least admitted there existed some sort of problem between her and her father, though one might argue the problem lay more with her overprotective and old fashioned rather than Mary Anne not leaving up to his expectations.

Well, maybe.

Still, Claudia didn’t think anyone could really relate to the struggles she faced in school, not to mention she felt as if people didn’t understand how her mind worked. “Well, it’s not a learning problem, is it? We’ve tested Claudia, and the test comes back negative.”

Did that make her lazy, or uncaring? She felt her parents possibly felt that way given the fact she never met their expectations yet opening up and telling them she didn’t feel like she could do _it_ felt so wonderful. The fact Janine ended up so – normal – when it came to academics, or at least as her parents likely felt. This didn’t change the fact she wasn’t going to the dance as she wanted. A sigh escaped her lips while she worked on her grandmother’s portrait.

“Something on your thoughts?”

“I messed up again.”

“Did you? You told the truth in the end.”

“Only for them to ground me because I failed the test.”

“Did they ground you because you failed the test, or because you lied.”

“They weren’t really specific. I don’t know how to explain what goes on in my head, but nobody ever explains why – well, it just doesn’t work.” After all, the tests said there was nothing wrong with her, so there must be something _wrong_ with her, such as her not caring or being lazy.

“I’m proud of you.”

Claudia smiled, knowing her grandmother would never stop saying as much.

**Author's Note:**

> The second episode reminded me exactly why I related to Claudia the most. I'm actually a dyslexic writer/reader, but - whether it was intentional or not, Ann M. Martin really hit it on the head regarding Claudia. I know there are people who don't understand _why_ Claudia never was diagnosed with a learning disability when it is so obvious she has one and the answer is - that's the reality of things, but just _because_ she was given testing doesn't mean she would have been properly diagnosed, not to mention the fact there is still to this day schools which try avoiding giving proper diagnosis and the fact there are misconceptions regarding learning disabilities such as dyslexia where there's such misconceptions that you can't read or write at all, or not well.


End file.
